Monday, October 4, 2010

How far in a day?

I have a super busy couple of days coming up so posting will be a bit erratic. However, I have to brag that I did finish spinning, plying, and blocking the red mohair/wool blend and I tried it out on my Soakers, now renamed Sailor's Delight (you know, red sky at night and all that?):

I did a lousy job drafting the latter part of the fiber - it kept coming up in lumps I couldn't draw out, which led to a fair bit of thick and thin yarn. Also, I didn't spin it anywhere near as thin as the blue-green yarn is, and had to reduce the number of stitches fairly dramatically to get the measurements consistent.

It's still yummy to knit with and I don't hate the colours together. I can't see knitting much more in the red and keeping the proportions right, but overall I'm happy with this solution.

Bonus: this marks the first time I have knit something more than a swatch with my own handspun! And it was pretty great.

Knowing that these two busy days are coming up has been bothering me a lot, because I didn't have any viable knitting to bring along with me and I know I won't be able to keep my hands still though conference time and waiting rooms and all that without getting a little crazy.

If you're going to knit in situations like that I feel it's best to have something I can do on autopilot, low in my lap so as not to distract anyone, without looking at my needles at all so as not to offend the speaker who may not know I am still hanging on every word. No shaping, no counting, no ribbing, etc., but also, something with more mindless hours in it than a sock (heel shaping) or a hat (crown.) And I can tell you, having hunted a fair bit online over the weekend, there aren't a lot of patterns that meet that criteria.

Yesterday it finally it struck me that I could do a big scarf/shawl thing with the stitches cast on lengthways for rows that need infrequent turning, and I can work a form of ribbing by cleverly positioning my knit and purl rows.

Of course this doesn't look so fabulous with self-striping yarn (as I found out after casting on 420 stitches and testing a few rows) but then I remembered my Precieux yarn from Biscotte et Cie. This is the lambswool angora cashmere blend I knit with last January, only in solid red this time, and I was saving it for a very special pattern that I had trouble working out and put aside for a while so I could come to it fresh later on.

Do you have this problem? Holding perfect yarn for the perfect pattern so you don't waste it, and thereby never using it? I had to remind myself that winter is coming and all my really warm scarves are scratchy, and A Simple Scarf is better than No Scarf, which is what I would have if I held out for my other idea to become clear and then for me to make time to pay attention while knitting it.

So, here is this week's experiment:


Stitches cast on, with knitting to begin while I wait for appointment #1. How much can I knit in two days of meetings and waiting rooms? I'll tell you more on Wednesday.

1 comment:

NessaKnits said...

Oh, looking forward to Wednesday now .....